Family Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques

329 Pages·2009·1.88 MB·English

by  Mark Rivett

Family Therapy
Family therapy is increasingly recognised as one of the evidence based
psychotherapies.Incontemporarytherapeuticpractice,familytherapyis
helpful across the age span and for distress caused by family conflict,
traumaandmentalhealthdifficulties.Becauseofthis,manypsychother-
apistsintegrateelementsoffamilytherapywithintheirapproaches.
Family Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques provides a concise
andjargon-freeguideto100ofthefundamentalideasandtechniquesof
this approach.
Divided into helpful sections, it covers:
• Family therapy theory
• Essential family therapy practice
• Using family therapy techniques
• Common challenges in family therapy
• Contemporary debates and issues
• Self issues for family therapists.

FamilyTherapy:100KeyPointsandTechniquesisaninvaluableresource
forpsychotherapistsandcounsellorsintrainingandinpractice.Aswell
as appealing to established family therapists, this latest addition to the
100KeyPointsserieswillalsofindanaudiencewithothermentalhealth
professionals working with families and interested in learning more
aboutfamilytherapytechniques.
MarkRivettisaUKCPregisteredfamilytherapistandSeniorLecturer
and Director of Family Therapy Training at Bristol University. He is
the current editor of the Journal of Family Therapy.
EddyStreetisaCharteredClinicalandCounsellingPsychologist(BPS)
and having spent most of his professional career in NHS Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Services he is now working independently.
HeisapasteditoroftheJournalofFamilyTherapy,andhaspublished
widely on this subject.
100 Key Points
Series Editor: Windy Dryden
ALSO IN THIS SERIES:
Cognitive Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Michael Neenan and Windy Dryden
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy: 100 Key Points and
Techniques
Windy Dryden and Michael Neenan
Family Therapy
100 key points and techniques
Mark Rivett and
Eddy Street
Firstpublished2009
byRoutledge
27ChurchRoad,Hove,EastSussexBN32FA
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,anInforma
business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
Copyright(cid:216)2009MarkRivett&EddyStreet
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedor
reproducedorutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,
orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,including
photocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformationstorageor
retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers.
Thispublicationhasbeenproducedwithpapermanufacturedto
strictenvironmentalstandardsandwithpulpderivedfrom
sustainableforests.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData

Rivett,Mark.
Familytherapy:100keypointsandtechniques/MarkRivett&
EddyStreet.
p.;cm. (100keypoints)
ISBN978-0-415-41038-0(hbk.) ISBN978-0-415-41039-7(pbk.)
1.Familypsychotherapy.I.Street,Eddy.II.Title.III.Series:100key
points.
[DNLM:1.FamilyTherapy–methods.WM430.5.F2R624f2009]
RC488.5.R5862009
616.89'156–dc22
2009003867
ISBN 0-203-92980-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN:978-0-415-41038-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-41039-7(pbk)
To Leonard who would have told me
which were the best points
and
With heartfelt gratitude to all my teachers

Contents
Preface xii
Part 1 SYSTEMS THEORY 1
1 What is a system? 3
2 The family as a system 7
3 Individuals and systems 11
4 Circularity and interconnection 13
5 Structures and contexts 17
6 Family rules, contexts and meanings 21
7 History and development 23

8 Meaning and time frames 27
9 The life cycle and transitions 31
10 Transitions and stress 33
Part 2 COMPLEXITIES AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS 37
11 Doesn’t systems theory make it sound as if
people are ‘things’? 39
12 Doesn’t family therapy ignore the individual? 41
13 What about the ‘self’ of the therapist? 43
14 Doesn’t family therapy ignore the social
contexts of families? 45
vii
CONTENTS
15 Is family therapy sexist? 47
16 Does family therapy promote what it sees as a
‘normal family’? 49
17 Is there such a thing as one ‘family therapy’? 51
Part 3 BEGINNING THERAPY 55
18 Collaborative integrative ethical therapy
model 57
19 Who is the customer? 59
20 Contacting and convening 61
21 Meeting the individuals 65
22 Explaining the process 67
23 Listening to the story 69
24 Capturing everyone’s perspective 73
25 Asking and empathy 75
26 The therapeutic alliance 77
27 Neutrality and the curious position 81
28 Reflection of feeling 83
29 Reflection of interaction 85
30 Tracking interactions 87
31 Establishing the family ideology 91
32 Children and play 95
33 Observation of interaction in the room 97
34 Establishing the family’s position regarding
therapy 99

35 Feedback and providing summaries 101
36 Considering external systemic pressures 103
37 Family resilience 105
38 Investigating the family supportive network 107
39 Setting the therapy agenda 109
Part 4 THE THERAPIST’S TECHNIQUES 111
40 Hypothesising and formulating 113
41 Expanding contexts 117
42 Talking about difficult subjects 119
43 Working with blaming interactions 121
viii
CONTENTS
44 Constructing a family history narrative – a
genogram 123
45 Reframing and positive connotation 127
46 Assessment in family therapy 131
47 Building motivation to change 133
48 Encounter moments and process change 137
Part 5 DEVELOPING INTERVENTIONS 139
49 Circular questions 141
50 Using questions to clarify and expand 145
51 Using questions to open communication 149
52 Using questions to break repetitive patterns 151
53 Using questions to link time – the past and
present 155
54 Using questions to link time – the future
and present 159
55 Asking questions to place behaviour in a
normative context 163
56 Investigating problem-solving solutions 165
57 Making suggestions within questions 167
58 Enactment 169
59 Homework tasks 171
60 Working with family scripts 173
61 Letters to clients 175

Part 6 TECHNIQUES FROM SCHOOLS OF FAMILY
THERAPY 179
62 Techniques from the strategic school of
family therapy 181
63 Techniques from structural family therapy 185
64 Techniques from solution-focused family
therapy 189
65 Techniques from narrative family therapy 191
66 Techniques from attachment-based
therapies 195
67 Techniques from psycho-educational
approaches 199
ix